House of Reunion
by EveGlass
Summary: Nina Martin returned to America after her graduation, but not everybody was happy with her decision... Five years on, she returns to England for a school reunion. But have Sibuna really solved all of Anubis House's mysteries?
1. Returning

**A brand new House of Anubis story about what happens to Sibuna and all the trimmings five years after graduation. Rated T for suggestive scenes in the first few chapters and some adult themes later on. Of course, much as I'd love to, **_**I do not own House of Anubis or any of the original characters. I do own the new characters that will appear later on in the story.**_

**I'd love any feedback and comments. Otherwise, you can tweet me EveGlass_Author for any further questions or requests.**

**P.S.: Moy shippers will love this first chapter!**

_**N**_ina

_**I**_ was sitting in the small airport café, listlessly stirring sugar into my coffee and looking out of the window over the runway.

It was getting dark outside, and the stars were spread out over the navy velvet backdrop like a scattering of diamonds. I was far too nervous – and jet-lagged – to fully appreciate the beautifully clear midsummer night. As I watched a plane take off, soaring up into the cloudless sky, I wondered if my little trip was a mistake. Maybe I should have just gotten on the next plane back to Los Angeles. Or perhaps I should never have left at all.

Either way, it didn't matter. I had arrived, and there was no going back. And the whole thing wasn't even my idea. Since I'd moved back to America to care for Gran three years previously, I hadn't been on a proper vacation. Gran had gotten weaker towards the end of my time at Anubis House, and she'd needed me, even though she was too stubborn to admit it. Once upon a time, it had been me and Gran together against everything and everyone, whatever life wanted to throw at us. It was Gran caring for me after my parents' accident. But as time passed, the roles were reversed.

It was strange living without her. Growing up the way I had, I knew that nobody was immortal, but I'd still been ignoring the inevitable, completely dismissing the idea that one day Gran wouldn't be there anymore. I had clung desperately onto something that I knew was too hard to hold. Gran had slipped through my fingers like smoke, fading and disappearing into thin air before my eyes.

Ultimately, it was my mother's older sister, Aunt Jenna, who had convinced me to take a break. In the weeks before Gran's death, I had received an invitation to go back to England for a school reunion. I wasn't intending on going, but both Gran and Aunt Jenna had told me that it would be a good idea. After all, I hadn't seen most of my old school friends since I'd returned to America.

Amber Millington, my best friend and my old roommate had kept in contact with me, and she even came over to stay for a few weeks at a time with her boyfriend, Alfie Lewis. But I had never been back to England. After many phonecalls and emails from Amber, I'd finally been persuaded to take a week's vacation in for the reunion.

So, there I was, sitting in that airport café, nursing the strongest coffee available on the menu and the disturbing urge to strangle the little brat on the table behind me who was demanding candy from her parents. I put my cup down and glanced at my watch. Amber was picking me up and taking me back to her house. I was looking forward to seeing her as much as I was looking forward to seeing the bed in her guest room. The last time I'd seen her and Alfie was the previous summer, during their last trip to LA.

My phone began to ring in my pocket. It took my exhausted brain a few moments to realize what the noise and the buzzing against my leg was. I reached into my pocket, flipped my phone open and pressed it to my ear.

"Hello?"

"_Hey Neens,_" Amber's voice smiled down the line.

"Hi, Amber," I greeted, trying to sound more awake. My eyelids had been drooping, and I'd felt my head bobbing on my jelly-neck. "What's up?"

"_Not much. I'm just calling to tell you that we're five minutes away._" Amber told me.

"I'm in the café. I'll go wait for you guys by the front entrance."

"_Great. See you there._" Amber's dancing voice said. "_We can't have you being late for the reunion!_"

I felt a twinge in my stomach. "No, we can't. See you in five."

"_Byeee!_" Amber said. Then, the connection was terminated. To be completely honest, even the thought of the reunion made a wave of nerves and fear rise up inside of me body. When I'd decided to move back to America at the end of my final year, not everybody thought that it was for the best. I tried to put that out of my head as I got to my feet and gathered up my luggage. I wheeled my suitcase along behind me and walked out of the café, thinking of the positive things that this vacation would bring me. But the fear and nerves were still there behind the excitement of being back

I only waited a few minutes in one of the uncomfortable grey metal seats at the entrance before I saw a pretty girl with silvery-blond hair and a tall half-cast boy coming through the open glass doors.

"_Niiinaaa!_" Amber squealed when she saw me, making a couple of Japanese tourists a few seats along from me look up in alarm. I got to my feet just as Amber rugby tackled me in a huge hug. I smiled and hugged her back, breathing in the smell of her expensive perfume. When we pulled out of the embrace, we both took a half step back to inspect one another. Amber looked pretty much the same as ever: model gorgeous. Her straight, fine hair was shorter than I remembered and cut into layers of pale, shimmering starlight. Her clothes were all designer labels. Somehow, I thought, she wouldn't be herself without them.

"It's so good to see you!" Amber giggled, taking a hold of my hands and hopping up and down in excitement.

"It's great to see you too, Amber!" I replied, smiling and half hoping myself. Then I heard Alfie clear his throat. I turned and smiled at him. He was standing awkwardly, watching me and Amber as we acted like a pair of prize idiots in the middle of the airport. "Hey, Alfie," I said, stepping forward and hugging him too.

"Greetings, Alien Lady." Alfie said as we stepped away. I smiled, remembering the first time we'd met five years ago, when he'd been obsessed with the idea that I was an alien hell-bent on devouring his brains.

"Come on, Neens, let's get you home." Amber asked. Alfie took my suitcase as Amber linked arms with me. "I have got _so_ much to tell you…" She said, guiding me towards the door. I stifled a yawn so big that it hurt my jaw. She smiled. "But I guess it can wait until tomorrow…"

_**F**_abian

"Fabian Rutter, you really are no fun!"

I was getting used to that line. I didn't bother to look up from my laptop at my flatmate, Mick Campbell, keeping my eyes fixed on the thousands of words on the screen.

"You know I'd love to come with you, but this report won't write itself."

"Fabes, that's the worst excuse ever!" Joy Mercer said as she came into the kitchen, fixing her little diamond stud earrings. Both she and Mick were dressed for a night out. I, however, was dressed in my pyjamas.

"You can't be parted from that computer! You'll want to marry it next. Seriously, what have you got on there?" Joy asked, putting her hands on her hips.

I finally looked up at them. "My coursework, Joy," I told her. "It's my entire future."

She sighed. "Fabes, it's not healthy for you to spend so much time in front of a computer screen. You know what they say: you'll end up with square eyes."

"Who are you, my mother?" I asked. I was getting annoyed. It wasn't up to her to dictate to me what I could do in my own life. "And anyway, you two are going to go out to a party and probably drink your own weight in alcohol. Then you'll stumble in at three in the morning. So don't try to tell me that what I do with my spare time isn't healthy." Joy's eyes flared.

"She's right, Fabian." Mick said quietly. Of course he'd pick her side. But then, I wasn't childish enough to care what he did.

"I'm always right." Joy said, looping her arms around Mick's strong neck.

Mick smiled. "Like you ever let me forget," Then he pressed his lips against hers. I rolled my eyes and turned back to my laptop.

"Come on, Fabian! There'll be girls there…" Mick said when they pulled out of the kiss, elbowing my arm meaningfully. I looked up at him.

"Then I'm sure you'll have a good time."

"Fine, be like that. Let's go." Joy tutted huffily, turning towards the door. I heard her stiletto heels click across the linoleum floor. Mick stood watching me for a moment longer, no doubt waiting for me to change my mind, but I continued typing feverishly, ignoring him. Mick was so intent on staring me down that he didn't notice that the sentences that I was writing had stopped making sense. It wouldn't have mattered if he had, of course, unless he suddenly understood Egyptology.

With a final sigh, he followed his girlfriend.

"Don't look at anything inappropriate while we're gone, Fabian." Mick called back to me as he opened the front door.

"Have fun, guys!" I retorted. Then I heard the door close, and I was alone in the apartment.

I waited for a moment, and when I was sure that they were gone, I dropped the article and clicked on a little camera icon.

It took the file a few seconds for the files to load, but when they did, I was greeted by the laughing face of a beautiful girl with the darkest shade of blond hair possible tied back in a ponytail. Her eyes were smoky grey with a thick ring of black around the iris. Most people would have mistaken them for brown. I felt a sad smile curl the corners of my lips.

I wondered where Nina Martin was now. I remembered the violent arguments, the insults and name-calling, the doors slamming so hard that it shook the whole of Anubis House to its foundations. Then there were the long periods of ignoring one another. The most vivid memory I had of those times was the thing that I now wanted to erase from all existence: Nina's tears. I hated thinking about them spilling down her face, leaving tracks down her pale cheeks. I felt an iron fist clamp around my chest, crushing my lungs and my heart.

But it clearly hadn't bothered me that much at the time, because the arguing went on and on right up until the day that Nina went back to America.

I closed my eyes and inhaled deeply. When I opened them again after a long moment, I clicked on the little NEXT at the bottom of the photograph, and Nina's smiling face was replaced by a group of people in school scarlet red and grey uniforms.

Like Nina in the first photograph, they were smiling and laughing and looking like they didn't have a care in the world. That one had to have been taken about two weeks before the fighting began.

I clicked through the photographs one by one. I wasn't just sitting staring at these captured fragments of perfection and happiness, wishing that I could just melt into them and stay there. Joy had given me the job of getting a slideshow of out schooldays at Anubis House together for the reunion the next day.

I didn't want to go. I'd spent the whole of the previous two days trying to find an excuse not to go to, but I'd come up with nothing.

The truth was that I didn't know if I could be in the same room as Nina without drowning in the ocean of guilt I was harbouring inside of me. If I so much as caught a glimpse of her face, I was sure that the dam that held it all back would break and let everything out.

_Stop wallowing in self-pity and get on with it, _said a voice in my head. It was right. I couldn't bury my head in the sand much longer.

With a sigh of defeat, I made up my mind.


	2. Hungover

_It was Nina who broke the kiss. "Fabian, I've got something to tell you." Nina said softly. I realized that she wasn't smiling anymore. _

**Anubis fans, I give you **_**Chapter 2: Hungover**_**! I have a question…**

**Sorry it's a little late. To make it up to you, there are some yummy bits towards the end of the chapter. If you like it, I'll put more scenes like it in later chapters.**

**Let me know what you think in the reviews. Remember that you can tweet me anytime EveGlass_Author.**

**P.S.: If you look on my profile, I have uploaded the introduction/first chapter of the sequel to this called **_**The Raven & the Jackal**_**. I would love any feedback on it.**

**Thanks and enjoy!**

_**N**_ina

_**I**_ awoke the next morning to the sound of clinking and muffled speech.

I sat up and looked around the guest room of Amber and Alfie's apartment. The early morning light was creeping slowly across the sandy carpet and up the cream walls. There was a collection of plain wooden furniture arranged strategically around the room: a wardrobe, a dresser with a little stool, an armchair near the large window and a chest-of-drawers opposite the bed. My suitcase and rucksack were lying at the foot of the wardrobe where I had dumped them.

I ran a hand through my long, dark blond hair. I vaguely remembered arriving at the apartment the night before and putting on my pyjamas before passing out on the crisp Irish linen of the guest room bed. It took me a few moments to realize what day it was. Cold fear crept up on me, taking hold of my chest in its icy grip. It was the day of the reunion.

I wondered absently if Fabian was awake yet. If he was as scared as I was. Sometimes I missed him, and other times I felt angry and betrayed at how he had treated me. Numbly, I realized that I didn't _know_ how I felt about him. I guessed I would just have to wait until I saw him later on that day to decide.

_**P**_atricia

God, my head _hurt_.

I was woken up by the throbbing. I'd never regretted a night out with Joy and Mick, but I was seriously contemplating it as I stumbled through into the tiny kitchen of my poky flat. Every noise, every light was amplified by my hungover mind. I groaned, massaging my temples as I lurched towards the cupboard under the kitchen sink and began searching inside for the aspirin. But I came up empty-handed. Wonderful. My head felt like there was a disco going on inside it and I'd used up the last of the aspirin. I glanced at the clock on the wall above the sink. Even better. The corner shop wouldn't open for another hour and a half, and there was no way that I was going to sit around and wait for the headache to clear. It looked like I was going to have to pay Amber and Alfie a visit.

I went back to my room and got dressed – well, changed from the clothes I was wearing at the party… and also in bed – and brushed my hair before going out into the stairwell. The concrete reeked of a combination of several things, including pee, alcohol and some other things I didn't bother to try and figure out. They couldn't be good, one way or another.

As I got to the bottom of the first flight of stairs, I saw a couple of boys who were about fifteen or sixteen standing with their backs against the wall, hoods up, roll-up cigarettes lolling at the corner of their mouths. They lived in one of the other apartments in the building, but I couldn't remember their names. I didn't bother to say hello. Talking made it feel like somebody was driving ice daggers through my eardrums. I just nodded as I passed. They two boys watched me as I turned to go down the next flight of stairs onto the ground floor, lurid blue smoke drifting up into the air around their heads.

I manoeuvred carefully around the wads of newspaper, chewing-gum and take-out cartons that littered the floor as I made my way towards the door. I was only supposed to be living at that flat temporarily until my boss at the paper either fired me, in which case I would have to live wherever I could, or made me a columnist, and I could therefore afford better. The first option was far more likely.

The sun was far too bright outside. I wondered if I should turn back and fetch my sunglasses, which would also hide the dark bags under my eyes, but I decided against it. All I had to do was walk for five minutes and then I would arrive at Amber and Alfie's apartment block. My head pounded harder as a car zoomed past, its engine ten times louder than normal, and I walked faster.

_**N**_ina

When I went through into the kitchen, which was just next door to the guest room, I found Amber and Alfie already sitting at the little round table eating their breakfast.

"Good morning, Neens!" Amber beamed as I sat down opposite her at the place set for me. Alfie mumbled something similar through a mouthful of toast.

"Morning, guys." I replied. I slopped vanilla yoghurt and muesli into my bowl and Amber poured me a glass of freshly-squeezed orange juice.

"So, what do you want to do with your holiday?" Amber asked brightly.

I shrugged and took a drink of the orange juice. The pulp filtered through my teeth as I thought. I could have tried to tell them about my non-existent plans, but I didn't. Amber and Alfie had been my friends for a long time, and they both knew that I was a completely useless liar.

"I'm just looking forward to getting today over with." I said finally.

Amber looked suddenly awkward as she picked at her fruit salad with a fork. "Oh…" She said as she speared a strawberry. I knew why she had taken that apologetic tone. Amber had been the one who had sat up late into the night with me while I cried myself to sleep after an argument with Fabian. She knew better than anybody else what I had gone through.

I sort of envied her, but not in the same way that girls had in the past. Beauty and popularity didn't interest me. I envied what she had in Alfie.

Since I'd gotten back to America, I hadn't been in a proper relationship, probably because I hadn't found anyone who I wanted to have a relationship _with_. Nobody had ever stacked up to Fabian, and I had the feeling that nobody ever would.

_**F**_abian

_Nina laughed as I ran after her, the long, dry grass of the meadow whipping our legs._

_The wind caught her wavy dark blond hair and tossed it around her shoulders. She was wearing a little navy and white nautical striped top with spaghetti-straps and a pair of cut-off shorts. The little white threads brushed the top of her firm, tanned thighs. I caught up with her and grabbed her waist, pulling her back to my chest._

"_Got you," I whispered in her ear from behind. She squirmed in my arms and turned so that she was facing me._

"_And _I've_ got _you_." Nina said as she lent in towards me so that our faces were only millimetres apart. She brushed my mouth with her plump lips before she pulled away._

_A deep groan escaped me as I watched her back up slowly through the long grass, watching me. She was teasing me. She knew I loved it. "Stop it," I said, trying to sound forceful as I stepped forward. When she was arms-length away from me, I reached out. My fingers brushed her hip and she backed away again. She smiled, and her beautiful dark grey eyes sparkled in amusement._

"_No you don't." Nina giggled. I stopped and eyed her. She stopped too. We stared at each other for a long moment. _

_Suddenly, I launched myself forward and caught her off-guard. She shrieked and tried to free herself, but I held her tightly. Eventually, she stopped wrestling and narrowed her eyes._

"_You got me." She breathed close to my face. I kissed her fiercely and let my hands trail down to her legs. As I hoisted her up, she wrapped them around my waist and stroked my hair, deepening the kiss. My T-shirt rode up and I felt the skin of her flat belly pressed hard against mine. I could feel the familiar feeling of lust stirring inside of me. It was Nina who broke the kiss. _

"_Fabian, I've got something to tell you." She said softly. I realized that she wasn't smiling anymore._

I opened my eyes.

I was back in my bedroom. There was no meadow and no Nina. I lay staring up at the ceiling and sighed. It was just my usual recurring dream. I always woke up there, and I never saw the end. Perhaps it was because I was too scared and too guilty to see it again.

_Judgement day, Fabian,_ I thought as I kicked my legs over the side of the bed. _It's time to grow up._

I stumbled sleepily out into the small room that we used as a kitchen, dining-room _and_ living-room and headed for the box of cornflakes.

"Morning," I said gruffly to Mick and Joy, who were lying curled up on the sofa together, watching some morning cookery program on TV. Joy looked up and smiled at me.

"Good morning, Sleeping Beauty!" She said, disentangling her legs from her boyfriend's. As she got to her feet and sauntered over, I noticed that she was wearing nothing but one of Mick's T-shirts and her underwear. It didn't bother me; I was used to Joy parading around the house half-dressed. She spent a lot of her time in our apartment with Mick, even though her own place was just a fifteen-minute bus ride away. I put the milk back in the fridge and sat down at the small round table.

Mick came over and sat down beside me as Joy made coffee.

"Man, don't you look radiant this morning!" He chided. I raised an eyebrow and looked at the slight bags under his eyes and the blond stubble shading his chin and upper lip.

"Right back at you," I replied. "How was the party last night?"

"It was fun, but it would have been better if you'd come…" Joy said as she stirred the coffees. "But you're a killjoy." She finished. Mick gave a low chuckle.

"Yes, but I _needed_ to stay home. I had to make that slideshow thing you asked me to do, Joy."

Joy almost dropped the mugs as she carried them to the table. She stared at me with wide hazel eyes. "I thought that you'd finished that _weeks_ ago!" She exclaimed.

"I finished it last night." I said, mixing the cornflakes and milk in my bowl as Joy finally got to the table without spilling the coffee.

"That was cutting it way too fine! I promised Amber that it would be perfect for the reunion!" She said half-hysterically. Joy hadn't always been a panic-y person. I put it down to a combination of hanging around too much with Amber and the fact that anything I did annoyed her, no matter how trivial. "I can't believe you left it so late!"

I sighed and looked over at the TV. I watched the bald presenter teach the star guest how to chop onions correctly before turning back and saying, "I have worked to the maximum of my capacities, Joy. If it's not good enough, then you should do it yourself next time."

I could almost _see_ the steam coming out of her ears. She opened her mouth and closed it quickly. There was a long silence. Mick looked from me to his girlfriend and then his eyes dropped to his coffee.

When Joy had finally calmed down enough to speak, she turned to me, eyes narrowed. "Since you don't care about it, I guess you're not coming to the reunion later."

"No, I'm coming with you, if that's not too much trouble." I replied.

"_Unbelievable_! You're going to go to the reunion just to suck up to Nina who's probably not even given you a second thought since she left, and yet you refuse to spend any time with the people who really _care_ about you?" Joy exploded.

"Joy, I think…" Mick began quietly. My temper was bubbling up, but I bit my tongue and stopped myself from retorting. Instead, I got to my feet and walked out of the room.

It took all of my strength not to slam my bedroom door behind me.


	3. Judgement Day

_It's judgement day. But is Nina really ready to face her demons?_

**Hey everyone, sorry I haven't updated in a while. I've been so busy with my other projects and I've been in Paris for a while. So, this is **_**Chapter Three: Judgement Day**_**. As usual, I'd love any feedback. You can also tweet me at EveGlass_Author for further questions or requests on my fanfictions, or on my official books.**

**Thank you and enjoy! :)**

_**N**_ina

_**A**_fter breakfast, I decided to go for a shower.

_Fabian, Fabian, Fabian…_

I grabbed the towel that Amber had left hanging on the end of the guest room bed and went through into the en-suite bathroom. I reached into the shower and turned the tap; instantly warm water hissed out of the showerhead. I straightened up and began unbuttoning the soft flannel of my pyjama shirt. When the steam clouds began to float around the room, I climbed into the shower. The hot water rolling down between my shoulder blades and the rest of my body relaxed me a little. I tilted my head back and closed my eyes.

_Fabian, Fabian, Fabian…_

Just for a second, as I carefully worked shampoo through my long hair, the water thundering onto my back felt like the palm of somebody behind me, caressing my skin gently, and the steam clouds felt like breath on my neck.

_Fabian, Fabian, Fabian…_

I ran my hand across where the imaginary palm was placed, but I felt only my own smooth, wet skin. Slowly, I was realizing. I wanted to feel somebody brush my skin again. I wanted to feel loved by somebody again. I wanted… No, I couldn't want to be with him. Surely our arguments had been a sign that we weren't compatible, that we just didn't fit together? Like Amber and Alfie did. I envied Amber somewhat in that aspect. I envied what she had in Alfie. They weren't just boyfriend and girlfriend, they were _soulmates_. They belonged with one another, fitting like pieces of a jigsaw. Maybe I just hadn't found my soulmate yet. Or maybe I had. Maybe my soulmate was the person who was stirring the endless, impossible yearning deep in the pit of my stomach. Maybe it was the person I'd been trying to avoid for three years.

_Fabian, Fabian, Fabian…_

_**P**_atricia

It was Amber who answered the door.

"Oh, hi Patricia," She beamed, far too perky for eight o'clock on the morning. Even in her pyjamas, she looked perfect. Her layered silvery-blond hair was pulled back from her face in two loose pigtails, one at each side of her smiling face, and she was wearing a short fleece robe in hot pink that stopped just above her knees.

"Hey Amber," I grunted as I stepped past her and into the bright apartment. Amber and Alfie not only rented but _owned_ one of the expensive, luxury apartments on the opposite side of town to my block, and it was otherwise populated by doctors and lawyers and other people with jobs I didn't recognize – or care to. Amber Millington's bank account was something that could only ever be rivalled by her shoe collection.

I walked through into the kitchen with Amber close behind me. I squinted as the light bounced straight off of the white worktops and wall cabinets and almost blinded me. Alfie was sitting at the table, spreading butter onto a slice of toast. His short, frizzy black hair was messy and sticking up in odd directions and his dark eyes were half-closed as he munched on his breakfast.

"Yo, Trixie," He greeted. I sat down opposite him.

"Have you come to see Nina?" Amber asked brightly as she began clearing the used dishes and cutlery from empty place next to me. _Oh_. I'd completely forgotten about Nina coming to stay.

"Yes, of course," I lied. "And to ask if I could borrow some aspirin." Amber's smile evaporated.

"Why?" She asked suspiciously. Her iced-mint eyes were narrowed and her hands were on her hips.

I rolled my eyes. "Because I need one," She continued to stare at me. "Alright fine, I confess to it, O Witchfinder-General; I was out drinking last night."

"_Aha!_" Amber cried, pointing a manicured finger at me accusingly.

I rested my elbows on the table and rubbed my fingers in slow circles on my temples. "Not so loud! I'm still suffering the effects of last night's Tequila-and-beer mix experiment."

"Patricia, drinking is really bad for you!" Amber scolded. "And it gives you wrinkles."

I stared at her mock-horror, putting my hands on my cheeks. "No, please no! Not the _wrinkles_!"

Amber stuck her tongue out at me like a schoolgirl. Alfie coughed, straining against a laugh. Amber searched under the sink, reappearing a moment later with a packet of aspirin. She poured a glass of water and put them in front of me before sitting down.

"So," She said as I popped a little white pill out of the packet. "I take it Mick and Joy were with you last night?"

I swallowed the pill down with a mouthful of the water – which was so filtered and purified I wasn't sure that you could even call it _water_ – and then raised an eyebrow.

"Why, are you worried we'll get up to no good?" I said. Usually, that's what ended up happening. We'd get completely annihilated on the booze and wake up the next morning without any idea of what had happened. But not last night. No, Joy had been to busy moaning about how Fabian never did anything fun anymore. She had returned home more or less sober. "We're adults now, Amber. We can take care of ourselves."

"Well how come you ran out of aspirin then?" Amber retorted. I was getting bored of the conversation.

"Where's Captain America?" I said to change the subject.

"She's in the shower." Amber replied. I hadn't seen Nina in person since she left to go back to America. The only news I'd had from her was from the odd call once every blue moon, and after Amber and Alfie's trips over to LA. Over time, we'd all grown apart. The close-knit group that had been formed and cemented together with the events of the past had slowly been pulled apart by time and adult life. We'd all moved on, grown up, changed. And I couldn't see the problem with that.

_**N**_ina

When I stepped out of the shower, my mind felt no clearer than it had when I went in.

The billowing steam clouds swirled around me, changing as I moved and clinging to my damp skin. I rubbed a hand across the mirror and inspected the willowy girl on a background of gold, white and turquoise tiles who stared back. Her dark blond hair was halfway down her back and her skin was pale. Her eyes were wide and dark, smoky grey and questioning.

_Are you really ready to face them? To face _him_?_

I sighed. Of course I wasn't ready, but what choice did I have? I'd made the decision to attend the reunion, and I was going to follow through with it.

I got dried and slipped on the white terrycloth robe that had been left on the back of the door. I pulled the belt tight around it and bundled my hair up into the towel before going out into the hallway. I was at the guest room door, when I heard a voice that was neither Amber's nor Alfie's, but still one that I recognized immediately coming from the kitchen door, which was lying ajar.

"My head hurts like Hell." The voice grumbled. I felt a smile spread across my face as I followed it into the kitchen. Sitting opposite Alfie was a tall girl with a slim, almost boyish frame. She had dark red hair cut into a silken pixie-crop and grey-green eyes that reminded me of the sea. My eyes trailed down her black, Goth clothes and stopped at her heavy biker boots.

"Patricia!"

Patricia Williamson smiled a little. "Hello stranger," She said, getting to her feet. I tackled her in a hug. She was rigid for a second, and then she patted my back awkwardly.

"Uh, good to see you too, Nina," She said as we pulled out of the hug. Patricia had never been a touchy-feely person. I'd missed Patricia's sarcasm and her fiery personality. She was basically everything that I was not. She was confident and outgoing and loud and defiant and unafraid of what people would say to or about her. She didn't _care_. But most of all, she wouldn't let her heart be broken by some silly boy. I had always admired that in her.

Patricia sat back down in her seat. There were slight dark bags under her eyes, like she'd missed sleep.

"How are you?" I asked.

She looked at me with her sea-coloured eyes. "Peachy, now can we please keep the noise levels down at a minimum? I think my head's going to explode."

_**F**_abian

I slid my arms into the long sleeves of my plaid button-down shirt, watching myself in the mirror.

I straightened the shirt around my shoulders and flicked a strand of black hair out of my eyes. I had picked smart, casual clothes that I felt comfortable in. "Okay Fabian," I said out loud to myself. "You can do this. You can _do_ this…" I fiddled with the cuffs, wondering whether to roll them up or keep them down.

"Talking to yourself is the first sign of madness, you know."

I turned and saw Joy standing there, leaning against the doorframe with her arms folded across her chest. She was wearing a scarlet red scoop-neck top with mid-length sleeves that clung to her petite frame like a second skin, a pair of dark jeans and a multi-layered silver necklace.

She smiled, her hazel eyes flicking across me. "Good Lord, you weren't joking when you said you were coming with us!" Then she added sweetly, "And may I just say that you look lovely in something other than your pyjamas."

"Very funny," I said. "Shut up."

Joy rolled her eyes and went back out of the room. "Somebody can't take a joke," She said as her parting jibe. I ignored her. I hadn't expected her to apologize; she never did after we argued. And I certainly wasn't going to do it. I was going to be doing enough apologizing at the reunion as it was.

_**A**_mber

_It was nearing seven o'clock when Nina and Fabian got back from their date._

_I was just a little jealous. Fabian had taken Nina out for a picnic in the country. Alfie was too busy messing around with Jerome to take me out. But I still liked him a lot. If it was possible, I liked being with him more than I had liked being with Mick. He made me laugh and, when he wasn't off pranking some poor seventh grader, he did everything he could to make me happy. It was sweet._

_I was lying on my bed reading a magazine, twining a long strand of my pale blond hair around my fingers. The smell of Trudy's chicken casserole wafted through the house, making my stomach rumble. It was hard to believe that tonight was one of our last nights at Anubis House. I was about to go downstairs to join the others when I heard the front door slam closed, shaking the whole of the house. I put my magazine down and sat up, kicking my legs over the side of the bed. I heard another door slamming and then somebody was running up the stairs, sobbing. A second later, the bedroom door opened and Nina practically fell into the room. Her eyes were puffy and red from crying. _

"_Neens, what's wrong?" I asked, getting to my feet and going over to her quickly. She was shaking._

"_It's Fabian…" Nina managed between hysterical sobs. "I told him Amber. I told him…"_

That all seemed lightyears away now.

But I still remembered sitting up with her that night and the two that followed while she cried herself to sleep. I hugged her, wishing that somehow I could take everything away, but deep down I knew that the only person who could ever quiet the feeling was the person who had caused her the pain in the first place.

_**M**_ara

I was standing by the bed of the hotel room, going through my bag and doing a mental checklist of the essentials when I felt a pair of strong arms loop around me from behind. Hot lips glided across my shoulder.

"You're distracting me," I groaned softly, letting my head rest against my fiancé's bare chest. His heart thudded steadily close to my ear.

"Can't we just stay here this afternoon?" He asked in a low voice, moving his fingers in feathery, light strokes across my belly, inching down towards my jeans. I desperately wanted to say yes. Part of me wanted to stay home and let him kiss me senseless, but I wanted to go to the reunion just as much. I hadn't seen everybody in ages. It wasn't like I could just bump into them in the street, either. I was living up in Scotland, where I was attending Edinburgh University.

I turned in his arms so that I was facing him. I put my hands on his chest. "You can stay here if you like, but I'm going to the reunion." I said.

"Come on, Mara, just half an hour…" He begged. I cut him off by placing a kiss on his lips. "Okay, but I'll only come on one condition." My fiancé said as he pulled out of the kiss.

"What's that, then?" I asked, stepping up onto my tiptoes so that I was almost his height, brushing his forehead with mine.

"I'll only come if you marry me twice." He said.

I smiled and pecked him on the mouth. "Oh, I think I could manage that."

"Good," He grinned. "I'll just go and finish up." His arms slipped away from my body.

I watched as he walked towards the small bathroom. My eyes trawled over his broad, tanned shoulders and his dark hair and the outline of his powerful legs through is dark jeans. He was barefoot on the carpet.

"And Sam?" I called after him. He paused in the doorway and looked back at me with his big, dark eyes. I smiled. "Remember to put a shirt on."

**So, what do you all think? Jara shippers; do not despair! I have a few tricks up my sleeve for those two! Mwahaha!**


	4. Prank Call

**Hey Everyone. New chapter! I love the generous reviews so far! You guys are the best! Remember, reviews are always welcome. You can also tweet me at EveGlass_Author for further questions, requests or feedback! Thanks and enjoy!**

_**N**_ina

_The taxi was waiting outside, my suitcase was packed. All I had to do was leave. To walk out the front door and not look back. But I had something to do first. _

_I hadn't been up to the attic in a long while, and yet everything was in the same place it had been before. The dust lay over the clutter like a blanket of fresh snow. The soft yellow light coming from the sunset shown in the small stained glass window captured the floating, dancing dust particles, turning them into tiny flecks of gold. Despite the dull feeling that had enveloped me since my date with Fabian a few days before, I smiled to myself as I looked around my little sanctuary._

_I could almost see a younger version of myself poking around, intrigued by the ancient leather-bound books and huge, locked trunks, wondering what secrets and mysteries they contained._

_A horn honked from outside and I remembered what I was there for. Slowly, I made my way over to the concrete wall at the other side of the attic. Even in the half-light, I knew where to step. I ran my hands over the wall and stopped when I felt a little hollowed out area. Then, I reached inside my shirt collar and pulled out the locket of Sarah Frobisher-Smythe. I looked at it, moving my fingers over the familiar shape of the Eye of Horus. The blood red jewel in the middle of it glowed. I raised the Eye and placed it in the hollow shape. It fit perfectly. There was the sound of stone grinding on stone, and the wall began to move. Heaving and parting before me like the giant mouth of a dragon, revealing a black chasm. A blast of arctic wind buffeted me, tugging at my hair._

_I stepped inside. The portrait of a seven-year-old girl with dark blond hair and sad eyes stared at me. I smiled. "Hello, Sarah," I said into the silence. "I've come to say goodbye." I touched the painting, feeling the rough lines of the artist's brushstrokes._

_There was another blast of cold air. The house was answering me. Of course, I couldn't understand it, I never had, but at that moment I _felt_ like I could. The house was trying to comfort me, reaching out soft, cool tentacles of its power to soothe my mind. I removed the Eye of Horus from my neck. _

_Maybe some day, another kid would need to find it. Maybe some day, another girl with the darkest shade of blond hair and eyes that were so dark grey that people often mistook them for brown, and who was born at that special hour on that special July day would need to use it to save her life and those of her friends._

_With one last look around the secret room, I went back out into the attic. The wall heaved and shifted again, closing the secret room off from the rest of the world. I walked over to the table by the stained glass window and placed the locket inside the cardboard box containing everything I had been left by Sarah Frobisher-Smythe: the photos, the newspaper article, the star map. The jewel gleamed again as I carefully slotted the lid onto the box. I put the box under the table, tucking it in against the wall in the shadows._

"_Goodbye, Sarah." I whispered._

_I locked the attic door when I left._

Nina…

_**P**_atricia

When the phone rang shrilly, it felt like somebody was piercing my eardrums with a spear.

"Will somebody get that?" I snapped. Alfie sighed and got to his feet, heading through into the living-room to get the phone. I heard the ringing stop and then Alfie's muffled voice as he spoke in the other room. Amber stood up and pushed her chair in under the table. It squeaked on the tiles and I groaned.

"I'm going to help Nina." She said.

I snorted. "She _still_ can't put her clothes on properly by herself?" Amber pursed her lips but didn't reply as she flounced out of the room with a flick of her pale blond hair.

I put my head down on the table and closed my eyes. The remaining smells of breakfast made my stomach churn. Food was the worst thing when I had a hangover this bad. The aspirin hadn't taken effect yet, and my head was pulsing like the music at the party the previous night. Alfie was still talking on the phone in the other room. I caught snippets of his conversation.

"… That's brilliant! Yeah, she's here… Hold on, I'll go and get her for you…"

I snorted, even though it made my temples ache. Nina had only been in the country for half a day and already everybody was dying to talk to her. I wondered if it was Fabian phoning to grovel pitifully to her. I kept my head down on the table as I heard Alfie come back through. I felt a tap on my shoulder.

I grumbled and lifted my head. "What?"

Alfie was smiling and holding out the phone to me. "Somebody wants to talk to you."

I frowned as I took the receiver. There was something suspicious about Alfie's smile. The caller could be one of a very small handful of people; Joy, or Mick, or Fabian or…

"Hey Trixie!" said a deliberately loud male voice. I winced. A short bark of a laugh echoed down the phone.

"What do you want Jerome?" I asked, rubbing a hand across my brow. Jerome Clarke chuckled again.

"I heard about last night's do," He said, still way too loud for my hungover senses. "Did you have fun?" I glanced over at Alfie, who was sitting opposite me again.

"Tons," I told him. "Now have you got anything useful for me, or are you just calling to be a pain in the…"

"Steady now, Trixie. Mind your blood-pressure." Jerome mocked. "Yes, I do have some advice for you, as it were."

"Oh, really? This should be interesting." I grunted. I had learned over the past ten years to take everything Jerome Clarke said with a pinch of salt, as my grandmother would say. "Go ahead, I'm all ears. Not that I need to be with the volume you're talking at."

I heard another barking laugh, and I held the phone a little further away from my ear to allow the throbbing sting in my brain to calm. "I've got this brilliant cure for a hangover. My friend from Texas taught me this a few years back at his brother's wedding. So, it's basically a sandwich."

I raised an eyebrow at Alfie who was watching me with a confused frown. "A sandwich? Wow, why aren't they selling those in pharmacies yet?"

"Let me finish," Jerome said. "It's a sandwich…" He paused. "Full of oozy, drippy, fatty lard. You know the stuff like a paste that you spread?"

The second the image of the snack appeared in my mind, my stomach lurched violently and I wretched uncontrollably, dropping the phone onto the table to cover my mouth with my hands. The receiver clattered on the wood. I heard Jerome cackle hysterically as Alfie picked it up. Jerome explained what he'd said, and the two of them laughed heartily while I tried to regain my composure and force the lump back in my throat back down.

"I _hate_ you two." I moaned as I rested my forehead on the table and clutched my stomach with both arms.

If that slimeball was going to the reunion, I was _so_ going to punch him.

_**N**_ina

_Nina…_

I snapped out of my daydream and looked up. I wasn't in the attic at Anubis House anymore. I was back in Amber and Alfie's guest room, and somebody was at the door.

"Come in!" I called, jumping to my feet from where I was sitting on the end of the bed and tightening the belt of my terrycloth robe just as Amber's silvery-blond head appeared around the door.

"Hey Neens," She smiled. "I was wondering…"

"Uh-oh," I muttered.

"… If I could pick out your outfit for today?" Amber asked. "You know, because today's a day for remembering the good old times and what not." She pressed her palms together and tucked them under her chin, batting her eyelashes at me. "Pretty please?" The good old times that Amber was thinking of weren't the same as the ones that sprang into my mind.

I sighed and shrugged. "Sure, why not?"

Amber giggled and clapped her hands happily. "Okay, let's have a looksy!" She said, going over to kneel by the wardrobe where my rucksack and suitcase were lying. I sat down beside her and unzipped the suitcase, then watched as she went through my things one by one… and as her face got grimmer and grimmer with each garment.

Halfway through, she stopped and looked back up at me. I knit my eyebrows.

"What?" I asked.

Amber eyed me. "Neens, have you forgotten everything I taught you?" She said, waving a cardigan at me. I took it from her and folded it carefully on my knees.

"Everything you taught me?" I parroted.

"Yes, about how to _dress_! I mean, just look at all of this stuff!" Amber said, picking up more items from the suitcase and thrusting them in my direction. "It's all woolly jumpers and baggy jeans! And I don't see _one_ decent top in here! Where's the glittery one I bought you last year when I came to visit?"

"Amber, we're going to a school reunion later, not a fashion show!" I retorted, pulling a pair of jeans from the pile and standing up. "These are perfectly…"

"Unsuitable and simply wrong?" Amber proposed as she pushed a strand of starlight pale hair behind her ear.

I looked at the jeans in my hands. She was right. They were a little out of shape, and there was a small stain near the back pocket.

I sighed in defeat. If you choose to argue with Amber Millington, clothes is not a good subject. She'd trash you every time. "Okay, fine. I admit; my stuff is a little… old." I finished. "But I haven't got anything else to wear! I mean, this is all I have."

Amber got to her feet in one fluid, graceful motion. She eyed the jeans in my hands and let her teeth indent her bottom lip thoughtfully. "Hmmm…" She muttered to herself. Then there was a flash of light in her iced-mint eyes and her face broke into a grin. "That's it!" She discarded my old jeans, throwing them in a crumpled heap on the bed. "Come with me,"

I followed her down the hallway and into the room she and Alfie shared. It was a bright room with furniture similar to the ones in the guest room. The window was lying open to air the bedroom, and the soft summer breeze made the curtains flutter, casting faint shadows on the sandy carpet. I went over to the rumpled bed and sat down on the edge as Amber went over to her wardrobe and flung open the doors theatrically.

"_Et voila!_" She said. "The solution to all of your clothing worries."

Amber's wardrobe seemed to contain an outfit plus accessories for every day of the year. Heels, flats, boots, strappy sandals and any other kind of shoe you can think of were lined up perfectly at the bottom. Amber thought for a nanosecond and then dived straight in, muttering to herself.

Having her pick my outfit wasn't such a bad idea. When we were still at Anubis House, I was effectively her Barbie Doll. Mara had never let Amber use her as a model because she didn't want to end up like a "walking makeup counter", and Patricia had claimed that she would have preferred to "pull out her eyeballs and eat them spread on toast". On many special occasions, Amber had dressed me. Like for our prom when we were sixteen, for our graduation when we were eighteen… Her creations were always beautiful and colourful and flattering. I guessed that was why she was the fashion editor in a leading teenage magazine.

After going through almost all of the contents of her wardrobe, which I found was amazing in just under five minutes, Amber turned around with a pile of clothes in her arms. Her eyes were gleaming with excitement. She threw the pile down on the end of her bed and turned her attention to me.

"Okay, Miss Martin, it's time to make you into a fashionista worthy of that name. Strip!"

_**A**_mber

Twenty minutes later, and we were almost done.

"Come on, Amber, I want to see it!" Nina giggled.

I had my hands across her eyes, and I was guiding her slowly over to the full-length mirror. When she was standing directly in front of it, I pulled my hands away.

"_Ta-da!_" I said as I took a step back to let her see. My best friend's face lit up as her eyes ping-ponged across her reflection, smiling.

I couldn't help but smile myself. I had chosen a crisp, tight white Oxford shirt that accentuated her handspan waist perfectly, and I'd teamed it with a pair of smart blue jeans and flat knee-high, tan boots made from soft leather with a silver buckle at the ankle. Casual with a hint of buisnesswoman. For the makeup, I'd decided on natural tones. A dusting of blush high on her apples, a little beige-brown eyeshadow and a slick of nude lipgloss completed the look.

"So, what do you think?" I asked. "Do you like it?"

Nina's eyes were still exploring her reflection. She blinked. "I… I love it, Amber!" She exclaimed. "It's perfect!"

I felt my smile spread wider as I began playing with the hem of the shirt. "I know! Just look at how this shirt makes your waist smaller and adds to your curves! And these boots make your legs go on forever!" I straightened up, beaming in triumph. "Nina Martin, you are a goddess incarnate."

Nina giggled, but then her face began to grow dark, her smoky grey eyes becoming clouded with thought.

I frowned and put my hands on my hips. "What's wrong?"

My best friend took a deep breath and looked down at her feet like she was ashamed of something. "I'm really scared, Amber." She said almost inaudibly. I stared at her.

"Scared of what?" I asked. She didn't reply as she shuffled a little. Then it hit me, and I blushed scarlet. "Oh, God, Neens…" I whispered. She didn't look up. Her gaze was fixed on the toes of the leather boots. I put a hand on her arm. "You don't need to be scared. You won't be alone, you know. I mean, I'm there, so's Alfie, and Patricia…" I hesitated as I said Patricia's name. "Well, you know." A small smile began to curl the corners of Nina's glossy lips and she looked up slowly.

"Thanks, Amber." She said softly. Her eyes were shining with tears. I put my arms around her.

"Hey, don't cry! You'll ruin your makeup!" I said. She made a little noise like an apologetic laugh and dabbed under her eyes carefully with her fingertips. "And remember; you were just doing what you had to. Fabian is the one in the wrong here."

She nodded and sniffed. "Yeah, I know."

Standing there in front of me, Nina looked more like a sixteen-year-old rather than someone who had just passed her twenty-first birthday. "Come on, let's go and show them what you're made of."

**And there you have it. I have brought forward Jerome's first appearance, as I was planning on him being the last to arrive at the reunion. But due to the eagerness of some Jara-ites, I put him in this one. ;D**


	5. Cat

**Hi! Now, this chapter is shorter, but it's more to introduce my new character. Nonetheless, it's important to the story! Enjoy!**

**P.S.: This chapter is dedicated to my friend bellabee14. You know who you are!**

**Eve x**

_**C**_at

_**I**_ sat on the wide wooden ledge of the triple-bay window in my bedroom at Anubis House, looking out over the green lawns.

I hugged my legs to my chest, resting my chin on my knees as I watched the last few boarders leave, the sleek black cabs and expensive sports cars pulling out of the gravelled driveway that led down past the school building and out of the front gates. The sun was beating down hard, lighting the grounds with the promise of summer, and yet I didn't feel warm and summery.

Today was home day, and my housemates were all leaving with their families for the summer holidays. But there I was, sitting in my room. I wasn't going home. I didn't have a home to return to. Anubis House was effectively my main residence, and it had been for the past year. And even though it had been a year, I still didn't fit in. Nobody at the house seemed to accept me in their group. They still treated me like an outsider. Of course, it didn't help that I had the feeling that I was being watched constantly. Maybe the others sensed my edginess when the feeling got stronger. You might think it was paranoia, but I was sure that it was more than that. It was like an itch. Some days it was worse than others.

At that moment, the feeling wasn't so bad. It was overpowered by the crushing sense of loneliness. I inhaled deeply, held my breath for a few seconds, and let it out in a long sigh. My blond hair fell in front of my eyes like a curtain, obscuring my view over grounds. Trudy Rehmann, the housemother, was busy cooking downstairs. I could smell the strong, sweet odour of her signature sticky toffee pudding. She was getting ready for a reunion of some sort for her favourite group of students who'd left Anubis House about five years before. I would probably stay up in my room, or go out for a walk in the woods. I didn't want to be hanging around like a bad smell when they arrived. That was the more or less the story of my life; fitting in around everybody else and their plans.

When the very last car had driven away, I ran my tongue along my dry lips and pushed off from the window ledge, getting to my feet. The bedroom was cut into two halves. On one side of it, the walls were plastered with paintings and sketches of everything: people, flowers and animals… There were a few half-finished drawings on the bed, along with some pencils. That was my side of the room. The other half was a different story altogether. The wallpaper was almost invisible behind the posters of boybands and fashionable celebrities. Everything was in its place. You could probably have fooled people into thinking that it was a display in a furniture shop. But it wasn't. The other side of the room belonged to my roommate Miss Perfect, or as she otherwise known, Ali Cole. Like with all of the other housemates, my relationship with Ali was almost non-existent. She was part of the in-crowd, the school's elite. She was the girl that every other girl wanted to be, and every boy wanted to date. Ali was shorter than me, with long, glossy brown hair and brown eyes and expertly-done makeup. I didn't usually wear makeup. I didn't have the faintest idea what to do with the stuff. I wasn't a tomboy, but I wasn't a giggly girly-girl either. I was somewhere down the middle.

I went out of the bedroom and onto the landing. To the right was a small room with large windows that looked out onto the landing. The blinds were always drawn, like they had been when I'd arrived at Anubis House a year before. But now the inside of the room was almost completely bare. The old caretaker, Victor Roddenmaar, had moved out only a few weeks before the end of the term. He wasn't quite right, or something. Nobody ever really told me what was wrong with him. I didn't ask. Victor had been a sour, disapproving man with thinning greasy black hair and a trimmed beard both streaked with silver. His eyes were like chips of black ice that were about as warm as his stuffed raven Corbier's, or any of the other creatures in his freakish, morbid menagerie. Victor had been strict, forbidding us from entering certain rooms in the house. It was strange, really. His mood seemed to flit between angry and depressed several times a day. In the year that I'd known him, I noticed that he seemed to get cranky when a student spoke to him, snapping unexpectedly at even the most innocent of questions.

I trudged down the stairs, running my hand down the old wooden banister. There were strange abstract shapes cut into it half a dozen times. The handrail was smooth from wear, but polished until I could almost see my reflection in it. When I reached the bottom of the staircase, I looked up at the big banner that Trudy had hung over the banister.

_Welcome Back!_ It exclaimed in big, red letters on the white background. There were glittery silver and gold stars, balloons and party-poppers drawn around it. I walked across the hallway and through the enormous, open double doors to the left that led into the living room and dining room. I found Trudy there, busy setting the table and humming something that sounded like an Indian lullaby. Her curly black hair was loose around her shoulders as usual, but she was wearing a brand-new pink sequined kaftan with a pretty floral pattern printed all over it. She looked up and smiled.

"Oh, hello Cat dear," She greeted in her usual, warm way. "Be a love and help me set the table please?"

I smiled and nodded. "Sure," I went over to the long wooden dining table and picked up a pile of silverware. "So," I said as I worked my way around the table, placing a knife, a fork and a desert spoon at each place Trudy had set. "Who are these people that are coming, exactly?"

"They're just an old group of students who used to live here, that's all." She said, fixing a placemat. When I had one set of cutlery left in my hands, I stopped.

"Uh, Trudy? You don't need to set me a place, you know." I told her.

The housemother looked up at me, frowning. "Why ever not?" She asked. I shrugged.

"I don't want to intrude on your catch up, I mean, I'm a total stranger to them." I told her truthfully.

"Nonsense, Cat." Trudy scoffed. "I've never heard such a pile of rot in all my time here! Of course you won't be intruding, you silly girl!"

I blushed and looked down at the cutlery in my hands.

"And anyway, how do people stop being strangers? By talking to each other, that's how." The housemother said. "You know, they're not all that bad."

"What are they like?" I asked, pulling up a chair and sitting down. Trudy sat down opposite me.

"Well," Trudy began slowly. "They're all different. There's Nina and Fabian, and they're into history and home restoration. Then there's Amber. She like clothes and makeup, or at least she did when she lived here. Oh, and Alfie and Jerome, the pranksters of the group…"

I smiled and listened to Trudy talk about the students who'd left. Her dark eyes were gleaming like she was reliving the memories as she told them.

"They sound kind of… cool." I said when she finished.

"Yes, I suppose that they were. You never know, you might actually end up making friends with them." The housemother said, poking my arm and smiling wistfully.

I smiled back. They _did_ sound interesting and kind of fun. Maybe I _would_ get on with them. But then, I wasn't pinning my hopes on it. I couldn't see anything that I would have in common with them.

Just then, the doorbell sounded, two musical notes drifting through the house. Trudy's eyes got wide and she looked at her watch.

"Oh good Lord, they're here!" She exclaimed, hopping to her feet. She looked around frantically. "Now, everything seems to be in order. I'll just go and get the cakes out of the oven." She turned to me. "Cat, go and get the door for me will you?"

At the time, I had no idea that the biggest adventure of my life was standing on the front doorstep.

**Thoughts, feedback, questions? Let me know by review or by PM!**


	6. Home Sweet Home?

_**Home Sweet Home. Or is it?**_

**Hey, Eve here with your latest instalment of _House of Reunion_.**

**It would be really good if you took the time to tell me your favourite character in the way that I have written them and why. For example: Patricia because of her sarky wit… Also, I have only just seen that there is already a HoA episode named _House of _Reunion, so it's possible that I will change the name soon. Any ideas, readers? Thank you and enjoy!**

_**N**_ina

_**T**_he drive from Amber and Alfie's apartment to Anubis House was the longest trip of my life. My fingers played absently with the tiny, pearly-white buttons on the blouse that Amber had lent me as I looked out the window. I watched as the boring grey of the town dissolved, changing slowly into the lush green pastures and thick woodland of the English countryside. Tree after tree flashed past, faster and faster. I tried to concentrate on the individual shape of each tree, but they blurred together in a mash of earthy browns and leafy greens. I felt nauseous. There was a thick, hard lump forming in my throat, restricting my breath. I tried to swallow it, but it just got bigger. Every time I closed my eyes, I could see Fabian's face fall like a ton of bricks when I told him about my plans. That image, sadly, had stayed with me longer than any of the any of the happy ones that we had shared during those two years of blissful perfection.

_Come on, Nina, mind over matter, girl,_ I told myself. I'd been repeating words of self-encouragement again and again in my head all morning until it stuck, like a mantra. I looked over at Patricia, who was dozing in the back seat beside me, her head resting against the window. Her arms were folded over her belly, defensive even in sleep. In front were Amber and Alfie. Amber was driving, and Alfie was hanging on for dear life. We all agreed that Amber was the worst driver in England, if not the world. The _Universe_. It seemed like every time she was in a car, she suddenly thought she was Lewis Hamilton or something. _More like Nicole Scherzinger_, the only part of my brain that wasn't in meltdown-panic-mode told me.

"Don't worry, Neens, nothing bad's going to happen to you today!" Amber said, knocking me out of my nervous daydream. A moment later, the car swerved and I heard the muffled _thunk_ of Patricia's head smacking against the window. She groaned and clamped a hand to her forehead, narrowing her sea-coloured eyes at the silver blond head in the seat in front of her.

Alfie, who had turned considerably pale, swallowed and fixed his wide brown eyes on his girlfriend. He was gripping the door with one hand. "Ambs, maybe you should concentrate on _driving_ instead of giving inspirational pep talks, yeah?"

Amber blushed. "Oops, sorry guys!" Then she looked at Patricia in the rear-view mirror. "Hey, Patricia, how excited are you about the reunion on a scale of one to ten?"

"Minus twelve," Patricia replied dryly, still nursing her head.

Amber tutted and flicked her long, silvery hair. "Come on, there's got to be _something_ you're looking forward to?"

"Oh, wait, yes, there _is_ one thing…" Patricia said. Amber smiled triumphantly. "Going home at the end of it."

Alfie smiled, and I tried to do the same through the wall of terror that was building upon itself inside of me. Amber hissed in irritation, earning a small, satisfactory smirk from Patricia.

There was a small silence then Amber carefully said, "So, you're not looking forward to seeing Mr Winkler, then?" Patricia's gaze went stony, and she shrugged dismissively.

"I don't really care." She said simply. This time, the smirk came from Amber. Patricia and Jason Winkler, our history and drama teacher when we were still at Anubis, had been pretty close. I hadn't ever known just how close, and I wasn't about to risk life and limb to ask her. I don't think anybody really ever knew, except for the two of them.

I didn't have time to think about it, because Amber began squealing excitedly. "Ooh look! We're here!" She was practically bouncing up and down in her seat.

The pit of my stomach dropped away as I saw the massive wrought iron gates get closer and closer, bigger and bigger.

"Oh _goody_," Patricia grumbled.

_**F**_abian

_I slammed by bedroom door closed behind me. My blood was pumping hard around my body, carrying the searing liquid fire of fury with it. What was going on? What did Nina mean? I stood with my back pressed against the door for a moment, staring at the wall opposite me. How could she? I lashed out with a frustrated yell, planting my foot in the side of the sturdy wooden chest-of-drawers. Pain exploded in my ankle, but I paid no attention to it. I was seething. I went over to my bed and sat down, legs open, elbows resting on my knees, head bowed, shaking. Nothing had ever put me in a state like that before. When I was younger and I got angry, I didn't hit things or people. I wasn't a violent character. My emotions manifested themselves in silence, but if I was alone and really mad, I'd bawl. But there weren't any tears for this. Not even one._

_Just then, there was a knock at the door. I didn't reply, instead keeping my head down and trying to control my breathing. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the door open anyway, and Mick's head appear around it. _

"_What the hell happened? The pair of you are in hysterics!" He said, sliding the rest of his body into the room and closing the door over behind him. I lifted my head just slightly so that I could see him. Mick was even bigger than he had been the two previous terms, all muscle and strength, topped with a mop of messy golden hair. No wonder the girls quaked at the knees for him. He and Joy had only recently begun dating. Suddenly, I felt a twinge of jealousy._

"_It's none of your buisness." I growled, clenching my fists. Mick hovered by the door, watching me. _

"_Something has to be wrong, Fabian. I've never seen you like this." He told me. _

Neither have I_, I thought._

"_Good work, Sherlock!" I hissed. Mick's emerald green eyes hardened. His hands were balled too, but his fists were double the size of mine._

"_No need to be like that…" He said in a low voice. My head snapped up completely. He stared at me._

"_How would _you_ know?" I snarled, getting to my feet. "You're too busy with your perfect love life to care about anybody else's."_

_Mick drew in a deep breath and when he exhaled, his fists unclenched and his body relaxed slightly. "I'll just leave you to your thoughts." He said monotonously, turning back to the door. "Supper's ready in five." And he closed the door behind him._

_I stood in total silence, staring after him. My nails dug into my palms. I turned around and kicked the bed with all the force I had in my body. It moved a few inches, scraping loudly across the varnished wooden floor and concealing my anguished roar. I sank back down on it again, face in my hands. I remembered what I'd seen in a wildlife documentary about life on the African plains once, quoting the line in my head and realizing that it suddenly made perfect sense. _

_Animals lash out when they're in pain._

_**N**_ina

The car stopped. I couldn't bring myself to move or even look out of the window. My fingers and toes were numb with fear, and the ice-cold feeling was creeping slowly through my veins, working its way up my arms and legs. It was like I was stepping into one of my nightmares – a nightmare that I knew I couldn't wake up from. Amber jumped out of the car, followed by Alfie after he'd peeled himself away from the safety of his door. Patricia sighed and sat there for a moment beside me, looking out.

"I wouldn't worry about today. You're not the only one who has to face up to things" She muttered before she unclipped her seatbelt and opened the door without another word. I didn't quite understand what she meant, but I was sort of grateful. Patricia wasn't an emotional person, but I took her comment as an attempt at reassurance.

I took a deep breath to steady myself. _Calm down, Nina, it's all going to be fine. Like they said, nothing's going to happen to you today. That's all over. What's past is past._

I stepped out onto the gravel, and it crunched under my boots. I pushed the door closed behind me. And then I looked up at Anubis House, for the first time in three years. It hadn't changed at all. The red brick and grey slate building looked as if it had been frozen in time, waiting for me to come back. My eyes explored the wide triple bay windows and the roof with its two chimneys, one at each end, and the thick green ivy that crept up the brickwork as if for the very first time. My breath had suddenly sped up, and I could feel it rasp slightly in my chest and throat. I found myself placing a hand on the roof of the car to steady myself. I hardly noticed that the shiny metal was burning hot. There was silence all around me, and I could see nothing but the house. Even the birds in the woods behind me were silent. I probably would have stood there all day, unblinking and unmoving, until Amber called my name.

"Nina! Are you coming or what?"

I jumped, snapping out of my trance. The other three were already making their way across the gravel.

"Get a move on!" Patricia added, continuing without waiting for us.

I swallowed. "Yeah, sure, I'm just on my way." I said with as much strength as I could muster. My still-numb legs wobbled beneath me as I walked around Amber's car to join her and Alfie. Sweat was pooling on my palms, making them hot and sticky. I thought about the last time I'd made the journey across those chipstones.

_The cab driver honked his horn again, gesturing for me to hurry up just as I reached the front door. When he saw me, he got out and came to help me with my heavy suitcase. I felt hollow and empty as I walked along beside him, like there was a hole that would never be fixed in my chest. I wasn't just leaving a house, I was leaving a home. But, I didn't have the time to sit around and mope. I needed to get into the cab and leave. It was the best thing for me to do. Eventually, I would just forget about everything that had happened in my two years at Anubis House, and I would be able to get on with my life._

_Everybody had left, even Trudy. Victor had locked himself in his study, and was probably fiddling around with Corbiere's stuffing. I was the last one at Anubis House. As I slid into the cab and pulled the door closed behind me, I felt like I was closing the door on a chapter of my life, and hopefully, I was walking straight into another open one. The cab driver put my suitcase in the trunk and then climbed into the front. _

"_All ready, miss?" He asked in a bored voice as he looked at me in the rear-view mirror. I gave an almost imperceptible nod. The driver grunted and changed the gear. Slowly, the cab began to move, pulling away. I lent back in the hard leather seat and watched as Anubis House got further and further away, through the tears and memories that floated around in front of me._

A soft breeze picked up and whispered in the thick rhododendron bushes that lined Anubis House. Alfie and Patricia went ahead, but Amber and I hung back a little. Amber kept her arm looped firmly around mine and I felt her hand brush my arm slightly, up and down. I gave her a weak smile. We climbed the three stone steps slowly, where Patricia and Alfie were waiting for us. My eyes explored the ancient oak door. The large yellow brass knobs were so shiny that I could see my reflection in them.

"Let's get this over with." Patricia grumbled, reaching for the bell. It was a traditional bell with a cord, the one I assumed had been there since the house had been build back in 1890 by the Frobisher-Smythe family. Patricia pulled the cord once and I heard the soft, musical _ding-a-ling_ echo through the house. I tightened my grip on Amber's arm.

"It's okay," She whispered close to my ear. "You'll be fine." She stroked my arm again. I was glad that she was there.

"Come on, we haven't got all day!" Patricia said. She went to ring the bell again, but her hand hadn't reached the cord when the door opened. A teenage girl who couldn't have been older than fifteen stood in the doorway. She was medium in height, with long, wavy blond hair that wasn't as pale as Amber's but wasn't as dark as mine that she kept out of her eyes with a clasp. Her eyes were clear grey, open and honest. Strangely, I had forgotten that there was a possibility that students were still living at Anubis House. It had seemed like the house began and ended with us, but of course it didn't.

"Oh, hey!" Amber said warmly, detaching herself from my arm just enough to offer a hand to the girl. "I'm Amber, and this is Nina, Patricia and Alfie, my boyfriend." Amber said after she'd shaken the girl's hand, gesturing to each of us as she said our name. "We're here for the reunion."

The girl looked at each of us in turn and then gave us a polite but still wary smile. "Cat," She said, stepping aside to let us past. "Please come in, Trudy's been expecting you."

Immediately, Amber took my arm again like I was a frail old woman. We walked through the doors of Anubis House for the first time in three years, and I felt the cool darkness engulf me, bringing with it the all-too-familiar scents and sounds that had tormented my sleep and my waking hours for far too long.

**Now the fun can _really_ begin! Soon, the other ex-boarders will arrive, but who will be first? The cause of the Fabina bust-up will soon be revealed, as well as some other little surprises! Do tell me if I'm dragging things out a teensy bit too much!**


	7. Rediscovery

_Even before I'd turned around, I knew who it was._

"_Hello Nina," said Fabian._

**I've got to say that the reviews I've been getting so far have been phenomenal! Thank you, one and all, for your kind words of encouragement. This chapter is simply dedicated to you.**

_**N**_ina

_**T**_he inside of Anubis House was dark, as it always had been, despite the massive stained glass window behind the stairs made up of hundreds of coloured squares that shone a rainbow of light on the polished black and white checkerboard tiles. Everything was in its place: the antique mirror, the heavy wooden chest at the bottom of the stairs, the ancient grandfather clock that ticked and chimed ominously throughout the house, and of course the ornate sarcophagus with its hieroglyphics and intricate drawings of divine events of ancient Egypt. The scent of Trudy's cooking wafted through the air, completing the picture. Memories lapped at me like the waves on a storm-troubled sea, making the hard lump in my throat swell even more and spread to my chest. My steps faltered and I stopped in the middle of the hallway, taking in every tile, every wooden panel, every shadow. Amber's hand squeezed my forearm. The girl who had let us in – Cat – stood in the double doorway that lead into the living room and called, "Trudy! They're here!" Then she turned back to us and I saw a tiny, almost imperceptible frown flicker across her pretty, pale face, almost like a flinch of pain. Cat's clear grey eyes held mine for the smallest moment, provoking a strange jerk in my stomach. In that fraction of a second, I recognized something in her eyes, something so familiar that I couldn't understand what it meant.

It was the housemother's arrival in the hallway that broke our eye contact. Trudy bustled into the room, in her usual busy manner, a thousand watt smile lighting her slightly wrinkled face. She was dressed in her favourite style of a kaftan top, pink and sparkly this time, and jeans. Amber let go of me and hurled herself into Trudy's open arms shrieking "_Trudyyy_!" almost bowling the poor housemother over. When Trudy managed to prise Amber's grip away from her, she held the silvery-blond's shoulders and inspected her with teary eyes.

"Oh, my, look at you!" She said softly, looking around at the rest of us. "Look at all of you! You're all so grown up!" Alfie stepped forward to hug Trudy. He had never really outgrown his gangly teenage body, and still had to stoop down when he looped his long arms around the housemother. When Trudy turned to embrace Patricia, I saw a flicker of embarrassment in the slim girl's eyes, but she hugged the housemother nonetheless, even if it was a little stiff. Trudy patted Patricia's cheek, and then turned her attention to me.

"Oh, Nina," She said quietly just before she gathered me up in a tender hug. I hugged back fiercely, inhaling the smell that hung around her; a combination of soap, washing-up powder and sugar. I noticed over the housemother's shoulder that Amber was dabbing away tears with her French-manicured fingers, and that Alfie had an arm looped around her. Cat was shuffling her feet by the bottom of the staircase, one hand resting on the banister. She slid her right foot back and forth on the tiles, keeping her eyes down. When she finally let go of me, Trudy's gentle, dark eyes inspected my face. She brushed a lock of my hair behind my ear and I felt a light blush rise to my cheeks. I'd always felt less worried and scared when Trudy was around. She was just so bubbly and happy that you couldn't help but feel the same.

"Where's Victor?" Alfie asked warily glancing quickly up at the landing as if the sour-faced caretaker was going to wink into existence at the mention of his name, the way he always had done when we had still boarded at the house.

Trudy frowned. "Victor left the school not too long ago. Retirement. I haven't heard much from him since." The troubled look in her eyes as she said that made questions bud in my mind. I looked over at Patricia, who met my eyes. She raised her eyebrows.

"I take it we're the first ones here, then." She said. Trudy nodded.

"Yes, but I expect the others will get here soon," Then she smiled around at everyone and clapped her hands together once. "But how about a little tour while we wait?"

_**M**_ara

Despite the air-conditioning blasting in my face, the inside of Sam's little car was stuffy. Sam was driving, and I was in the front passenger seat. He kept one hand on the wheel, but had placed one on my bare knee and was stroking it slowly and rhythmically with his fingers, never going above the hem of my navy blue skirt. I smiled and let my head rest on the seat, breathing in the warm air as my eyelids drooped. I was tired after the night we'd had together. Sam, who'd never been to England before, wanted me to show him what restaurants were best. After a short reflection on the subject, I'd decided finally to take him to one of my favourite places – a traditional English pie shop – where we'd shared a massive steak and ale pie. Then, when we'd gotten home at around eleven pm, we'd gone straight to bed. I liked snuggling up to Sam's body, feeling the warmth of his arms around me and the gentle weight of his lips as they brushed my skin.

"Almost there now…" My fiancé said in his Canadian accent that had begun to pick up a tiny Scottish twang. I felt a bubble of excitement about seeing my old schoolmates again. I wondered where they all were now, if they were studying, or if they were working, if they had fiancés just like me. I knew a little about them. On occasion, Amber would call me or email me out of the blue. Of the eight others, she was the only one to contact me more or less regularly. But we still weren't as close as we were before, when we were at school. I ran a hand through my hair and breathed in the warm air. I knew of course that Nina had gone back to America soon after graduation, and that Amber had become a columnist at a popular teen fashion magazine, and that she was still with Alfie after all that time. The last I'd heard of Patricia was six months ago. There were rumours that she might be getting sacked from yet another job, which was unsurprising if her numerous drunken escapades were anything to go by. As for the others, I didn't have the faintest idea.

"I hope you're going to keep your promise. About marrying me twice." Sam said. I turned my head to look at him. He gave me a playful sideways smile, keeping his eyes on the road ahead.

A grin spread over my mouth, and I let one hand trail down to where his was stroking my knee, placing it delicately on top. "I always keep my promises." Personally, I wanted to put off a wedding until we were a little older, maybe after we'd finished uni, but Sam insisted that we do it as soon as possible. I hadn't ever imagined that at twenty-one years of age, I'd be engaged to some guy I'd only met nine months before and preparing a wedding. I intended to be a good wife, to give him a lasting relationship, like the one my parents had. My mother and father had been together since they were seventeen. When my older sister Holly and I were children, we'd always pulled disgusted faces when our parents kissed in front of us, but I realized eventually that their undying love was a good thing. I hoped that one day, when Sam and I had a family and a life together, that we would be as happy as I was with my parents.

Sitting there in that little car, driving down the summer sun-baked English country roads with Sam, I was absolutely that our life together was going to be the fairytale most girls can only dream of.

_**N**_ina

Walking into my old room was strange. Amber and Alfie were busy rediscovering the ground floor, and Patricia had decided to lounge around the living room, leaving me to head upstairs. The beds were in the same place, one by the window and the other sitting against the wall opposite it. The one closest to the window, the one that had been mine, was covered by a sandy-gold silky duvet and a white blanket folded down at the bottom. On the dark wooden headboard, the name _Ali_ was glued on with glittery gold letters. The walls were plastered with the images of pop bands and baby-faced actors posing for the paparazzi and photoshoots. Everything was ordered and tidy. The other side of the room was a different story altogether. It was messy, as I remembered Alfie and Patricia's bedrooms being. Instead of glossy posters on the wall above the bed, there were sketches and paintings of all sorts of things. They weren't framed or straight. Some overlapped others, and some were almost completely hidden. There were more on the bed, unfinished or scrunched up, and pencils were strewn amongst them. There was an easel leaning against the wall with an incomplete painting of a pink rose on it.

"Whoa, explosion in a paint factory," Said a voice from behind me. I turned and saw Patricia standing by the door. She was watching me with her arms folded. She must have seen my puzzled expression, because she said, "This was my room too, remember?"

"Oh," I breathed, remembering my first few weeks at Anubis House when Patricia had been my reluctant roommate. She came to stand beside me, looking around.

"Mmm, yes. Very… arty." She said as her eyes scanned the messy side. I smiled.

"Patricia?" I asked.

"Uh-huh?"

I watched as she walked over to the tidier bed and sat down on the edge of it. She picked up a bare glass jewellery prop in the shape of a woman from the bedside cabinet. She inspected it, turning it over in her hands thoughtfully. "What did you mean when you got out of the car? About me not being the only one to have to face up to things?"

Patricia smiled and put the jewellery prop back on the bedside cabinet without looking up at me. "Do you remember how much I hated you when you first got here?" I stared at her in silence. Eventually, she looked up, meeting my eyes with her sea-coloured ones. She chuckled. "I thought you were a total cow."

I blinked and shifted my weight from one foot to the other, wondering if this was an answer to my question. "How could I forget?" I replied, giving her a brief, genuine smile. I went over and sat beside her on the bed, not quite shoulder to shoulder. "I mean, we're not exactly BFFs now either, are we?"

Patricia shrugged. "No, we're not. But you know, if it hadn't been for all the Joy stuff, I think we could have…" Her words trailed off. She took a deep breath and her mouth turned up in a grin. "You know."

"Been friends?" I suggested. Patricia looked at me with one eyebrow raised.

"_Liked_ you. Don't push it." She said.

I felt myself smile. _That's more like the Patricia we all know and love_, I thought. The tall, slim girl also smiled. We sat in silence for a moment, before we heard the dreaded _ding-a-ling_. I felt my smile evaporate and the pit of my stomach drop.

_He's here, _my mind screamed in blind panic. Patricia got to her feet.

"Come on, we'd better go and faff around telling them how much we missed them." She grumbled. It was only when we got to the top of the stairs that I felt the enormous wave of relief. It wasn't Fabian. It was Mara Jaffray and a tall guy I didn't recognize with dark hair built like a quarterback. Amber had already appeared in the hallway bouncing in with her usual war-cry of "_Eeeee_!" Alfie and Trudy appeared a moment later.

Patricia and I moved down the stairs as Amber strangled her friend in a back-breaking hug, squealing all the time.

"Amber… can't… breathe…" Mara gasped, her chocolaty eyes wide. The silvery-blond girl released her grip, still giggling excitedly, and Patricia stepped forward. The two girls also hugged while the dark-haired guy and I stood silently by.

"And who's this?" Amber asked Mara, sneaking glances at the dark-haired guy, sizing him up with a mischievous grin.

"Oh, this is Sam, my fiancé," Mara explained. Sam smiled and looped an arm around her.

Amber giggled and clapped her hands together excitedly. "Aw, that's so _sweet_!" She said dreamily. Both Sam and Mara looked slightly embarrassed as Amber cooed. "We have _so_ much to talk about, Mara!" The silvery-blond said, grabbing the ebony-haired girl's arm and dragging her away from her fiancé. Mara glanced pleadingly over her shoulder at the rest of us just before Amber hauled her around the double doors into the living room, chatting indistinctly. Patricia, Trudy and Alfie followed, leaving only Sam and I in the hallway.

Sam watched them go, chuckling quietly to himself with one eyebrow quirked. I shrugged at him. "She's a – uh – bit full on sometimes."

"I can see that," He mused. He wasn't English. I recognized his accent as a mix of Canadian and something else. I could now hear Trudy fussing over the newly-arrived Mara in the living-room.

"Shall we –?" I asked, nodding towards the double doors. Sam smiled and we turned to make our way into the living-room to join the reunion. But I had only taken a few steps when I paused. I could feel eyes on my back. Even before I'd turned around, I knew who it was.

"Hello Nina," said Fabian.

**Jara: Coming Soon.**


	8. Forgivers & Forgiven

_Fabian paused at the door and turned his head only slightly, just so that he could see me in the corner of his hardened black eyes. I saw his jaw flex, clenching and unclenching. Then, without saying a word, he kept walking._

**It's me again with your latest instalment of **_**House of Reunion**_**. I can officially say that this is the beginning of the conclusion for the Fabina plot. It will span out over perhaps the next few chapters, but no more.**

_**N**_ina

_**T**_he last time I saw Fabian was a moment that I'd replayed over and over in my head in the months that followed, trying to understand it, make sense of it.

_There was only me, Amber and Fabian left in Anubis House, the others had all left for the last time. Amber's chauffeur was transporting her many suitcases from the hallway back out to the car. Amber held me for a long moment. She was crying, but I was surprisingly dry-eyed. Maybe it was because I'd used up all of my tears over the past few days. When she finally let me go, there were tear-tracks staining her model-gorgeous face. Amber made an unladylike snort and wiped her eyes with the back of her long, delicate hands, being careful not to smudge her black mascara._

_She swallowed hard before taking my hands and squeezing them. "Promise you'll call or email every day."_

"_Every week, Amber," I corrected. We'd already talked about contact, and settled on once a week, on Friday or Sunday night. "Remember what we talked about."_

_Amber gave another snorting sniff. "Oh, yeah, right. I'm going to miss you!" She throttled me in another hug._

"_Yeah, me too Amber," I replied, my voice muffled by my mouthful of silvery-blond hair._

"_But you promise?" She probed._

_I nodded. "Of course, Amber. I promise." I assured her, patting her back gently. Amber's chauffeur Bollard, a grey-haired man with a leathery, weather-beaten face stepped into the hallway looking flushed from the effort of carrying Amber's suitcases._

"_All set, Miss Millington." Bollard said._

"_Thanks, Bollard." Amber replied. "Just give me a minute." _

_The chauffeur inclined a polite nod to Amber "Yes, Miss Millington," He repeated the gesture for me. "Miss Martin."_

_When he was out of sight, Amber sighed shakily. "And call me when you get to LA!" _

_I rolled my eyes and gave her a little shake. "If you don't get going, you're going to be here until next term." I said. She smiled and with one last look at me, she turned and walked out the open doors. A minute later I heard the engine of the Millingtons' expensive car pull out of the driveway. I checked the time on my watch. Another fifteen minutes and my cab would be here, and it would be my turn to go. I was about to make my way upstairs to fetch my things, but I paused. Fabian was walking down the corridor, carrying his case in one hand. He hadn't been out of his room at all since our date. He glanced up at me, but didn't quite meet my eyes. He just walked straight past me, almost brushing my shoulder with his._

_I turned and watched him as he walked towards the door without even saying goodbye. I was going to let him go, but I was suddenly overwhelmed by a sense of guilt. "Fabian!" I called out his name once. It was the only word that had been floating in my mind recently, but I'd scarcely said it aloud. Fabian paused at the door and turned his head only slightly, just so that he could see me in the corner of his hardened black eyes. I saw his jaw flex, clenching and unclenching. Then, without saying a word, he kept walking._

Now, standing in the very same place, the whole world had gone the same deadly quiet.

Amber, Mara and Trudy's chatter became faint. They seemed miles away as I turned to face him for the first time in three years. Fabian stood in the doorway, watching me with those dark, dark eyes. He looked so like he had the last time I'd seen him. The late-morning sunlight shone from behind him, making his ebony hair gleam brown, and casting a long, dark shadow across the black and white checkerboard tiles. My eyes traced every single one of his features. I opened my mouth to speak, but no words came out. I could feel my pulse in my fingertips, beating quickly and evenly. I was too scared breathe or blink or move. Fabian was staring too.

After what seemed like an eternity of silence, he spoke. "Uhm, hey,"

"H-hi," I stammered. "We th-though you weren't coming…" I managed to control my nervous stuttering just enough to make the words understandable. Fabian opened his mouth to reply, but he was interrupted by the appearance of two other people who came bounding up the small steps behind him. One was a pretty girl with shiny brown hair, hazel eyes and skin like cream and coffee and the other was a muscular guy with a mop of tousled golden hair and darker golden stubble on his chin and upper lip. They stopped behind Fabian, who was frozen in the doorway.

"Hey, what's up with the traffic jam, Fabes?" Joy Mercer asked. Fabian blinked once, finally taking his eyes off of me, and stepped to the side to allow his friends to get through. When Joy saw me, her face lit up.

"Nina!" Her eyes glittered as she hugged me warmly. Hesitantly, I returned the embrace. We'd never been extremely close, but we'd never been enemies.

"Hi," Mick Campbell smiled. I had hardly recognized him at all at first glance. He had always been the biggest, strongest guy at school, the object of all of the girls' desires, but he was now more built up than ever. I could see the iron muscles move under his T-shirt as he gave me a little awkward wave before stuffing his hands in his pockets.

"Where are the others?" Joy asked. I nodded towards the living-room.

"They're in there." I told her, trying to make my voice sound more normal. I knew that Fabian was still watching me, but I didn't look at him.

As Joy and Mick walked past me, heading towards the living-room, I heard Mick say, very quietly, "Get your earbuds ready…" Sure enough, as soon as they disappeared around the door, the excited squealing began. After a short hesitation. I turned to follow them.

"Nina," I heard Fabian say from behind me, injecting a pleading note into his voice. I paused for a second, turning my head just enough to see him in the corner of my eye. I kept walking.

_**C**_at

I sat on my bed, staring at the varnished, dark floorboards.

I'd never fully understood the term "someone walking over your grave", but now I felt as though I knew perfectly what it meant. When Nina, the dark blond-haired American girl had walked in, it had been like an ice spider had crawled up my spine, forcing my entire body to judder uncontrollably. There was something about her that seemed oddly familiar to me, like I already knew her. I could hear the others downstairs, talking loudly, laughing as they caught up with one another. I looked around my room. There was only one explanation: I was going crazy. All that time of solitude spent painting or sketching had finally driven me around the bend. There was no way on Earth that I could already know Nina. I barely even knew everybody in the school by name, let alone the previous students. And yet, and yet.

I took a deep breath and went over to the window. Two more cars had appeared out front on the gravel and joined the first one. They were neatly parked one beside the other. It reminded me of the beginning of term, when everybody came flooding back to the house, and the grounds which had been so quiet in the summer months were suddenly alive with the buzz of teenagers settling in for term. A light breeze had picked up outside, tugging at the branches and the short green grass of the vast lawns. The sun was still beating down, warm on my face even through the thick double-glazed window. It was almost midday, and lunch would be ready soon. I could smell it wafting in from under the door. I was about to turn away and head downstairs, when something caught my eye. The feeling that I was being watched crept up on me like a shadow.

Just for a second, I though I saw something moving in the bushes, an indistinct dark shape, flashing between the leaves, there one minute and vanished the next. I squinted to get a better look, but as soon as I blinked, the ghostly shape seemed to dissolve into the undergrowth. I'd seen it before. The first few times, I'd assumed it was a deer or maybe a boar in the woods, plucking up the courage to come a little closer to where it could find food. But eventually, I'd realized that it was far too big for a wild boar. It couldn't be a deer either, because it seemed far heavier than the graceful, shy animals that roamed the woods. Maybe it was just my imagination playing tricks on me. Some of my teachers described me on report cards and occasionally to my face as an "over-imaginative young lady". That was just the Adult Code for "total fruit-loop". I kept my eyes on where the shape usually appeared, but nothing happened. It was gone again.

_**M**_ara

"Jerome's later as per usual." Amber huffed, glancing up at the clock hung above the TV near the window. She batted away a lock of starlight pale hair in annoyance.

We were all sitting around the coffee table in the living-room, and Amber was holding court just like the old days. Because of the lack of seats, I was sitting on Sam's knee on one of the comfy old armchairs and Mick and Joy had had to pull up two of the ornate wooden chairs from the dining table, which they had placed between our seat and the sofa. I lent back against Sam's chest and listened intently as Amber went on and on about her trips around the fashion capitals of the world, searching for inspiration for her column. Patricia looked about ready to fall asleep. My hands and Sam's were knotted and resting on my legs. I felt like a loved-up teenager again, with my dumb smile.

"I know," Alfie replied. "He said he was going to be here." His wide brown eyes were disappointed.

Patricia snorted as she ran a hand through her glossy, dark red pixie crop. "Huh, you _know_ you can't rely on Jerome, Alfie. I though you'd have learned that by now." She said indifferently. Alfie sighed, then gave a small nod of reluctant agreement. I cast my mind to the only absent member of the reunion. Back when we were about sixteen, Jerome Clarke and I had been quite close. He'd helped me run my election campaign and eventually, I'd managed to coax him out of his concrete shell, and he'd told me things – secrets – that I was sure he hadn't even told Alfie. But when Mick and I had started dating after his trip to America, he'd just stopped talking to me. I supposed it was jealousy. It had stung when he'd only adress me when he absolutely needed to, only ever giving me brief looks but never quite looking into my eyes the way he had before. I regretted losing such a close friend, but I had no idea how to right the wrong. To be honest, I wasn't sure what the wrong was.

Trudy appeared in the doorway through to the kitchen, interrupting my thought pattern. "Lunch will be ready in about half an hour, lovies." She called over to us, fixing her blue gingham apron.

"Awesome!" Alfie exclaimed, rubbing his hands together eagerly and seeming to forget the whole thing about Jerome being absent. There was a mumble of general agreement. Trudy's dinners were something to drool over. She'd made us all sorts of things: curries, stir-fries, roast dinners, pasta, everything. Anything she'd made for us was phenomenal.

"And after lunch we can move onto the photos!" Amber said. "Joy, did you sort out the slideshow album for us?"

"Of course," Joy nodded.

"I dug out some old photos too. They're in the car," I said. "I'll go get them now."

I untangled my hands from Sam's and stood up, and he fished around in his pocket for the car keys. "Back in a minute."

It was hot outside. It was the hottest weather that I could remember for years. The midday sun was blinding as I walked across to Sam's little car, which was neatly parked by Amber's. I hit a button on the key ring and there was a short _beep-beep_ noise and the locks clicked open. I opened the passenger door and stooped down, reaching inside the sweltering, turkey-roasting heat to grab my bag, which was hidden under the seat. I searched around inside of it. Sure enough, the shiny multicoloured cardboard sleeve that contained the photos was there. I slid them out and quickly checked them. The top one was an image of seventeen-year-old versions of me, Patricia, Amber and Nina pulling stupid faces on one of our trips into the town. I smiled at the squint eyes and wobbly mouths.

"Aha, gotcha," I whispered to myself as I straightened up and closed the car door, still looking at the photos, inspecting each one

"Talking to yourself is the first sign of madness, Jaffray," Mused a familiar voice. There had only ever been one person who called me by my surname. My eyes went to the window. Reflected in the shiny mirror-like surface, was a lanky guy with messy hair and high cheekbones.

I whipped around and found myself staring at Jerome Clarke for the first time since graduation. "Jerome!"

His grin widened. "The one and only," He said with his usual cockiness. My eyes flicked over him. He was wearing a tight white T-shirt that emphasized his straight-up-and-down shape and a dark waistcoat. I laughed in amazement and pulled him into a fierce hug, crushing him aginst me. Jerome made a soft "Oomph!" noise, but a second later I felt his lanky arms return the embrace. My head still only barely passed his collarbone. When we pulled away, I stared at him, smiling.

"It's so good to see you again! I just… I can't believe you're actually here!" I gushed.

Jerome shrugged lightly. "I didn't want to miss an opportunity for a free meal, especially when it's Trudy Food." Jerome said. I nudged him with my elbow and giggled.

"That, in Jerome language means _Yes, it's good to see you too, Mara_." I laughed. He shrugged again and treated me to a flash of his trademark lopsided grin.

"Come on. Everybody's here and lunch is almost ready. Plus, I have some memories for us to get teary over." I said, waving the photographs at him.

"Oh, deary me, I can feel myself welling up already." Jerome replied, dramatically putting the back of his hand to his forehead and forcing his pale lips into an exaggerated pout. I rolled my eyes and took hold of the front of his waistcoat and began towing him along behind me across the chipstones, towards Anubis House.

**Ta-da! I believe I added this chapter just in time before I was responsible for a Jara Fan riot. Don't worry; this is just a snippet of Jara, more to follow. And I can promise you, one and all, that it is going to prove very yummy indeed! ;D **


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